CIA Working With Palestinian Security

Posted on Dec 18, 2009

Flickr / Tanya N

Graffiti adorn the Israel-made wall in the West Bank.

Even after the hoopla of President Barack Obama’s executive order barring torture, evidence is surfacing that CIA agents are cooperating with, and potentially supervising, Palestinian security agents who are detaining and allegedly torturing Hamas supporters in the West Bank.  —JCL

The Guardian:

Palestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned.

Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that prohibited torture and provided for the lawful interrogation of detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the CIA is co-operating with security agents whose continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups.

The relationship between the CIA and the two Palestinian agencies involved – Preventive Security Organisation (PSO) and General Intelligence Service (GI) – is said by some western diplomats and other officials in the region to be so close that the American agency appears to be supervising the Palestinians’ work.

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